Global Capital Expenditure in PV to Rise Again

Global Capital Expenditure in PV to Rise Again

By Stephan Raithel, Director PV Europe

SEMI’s company mission is “to advance industry growth, support continuous
efficiency improvements and promote sustainable business practices through international
standards development, events, public policy advocacy, EHS support, market
intelligence, and other services”. We support each individual stakeholder in
the PV manufacturing supply chain in their quest to identify the needs of
advanced PV manufacturing and work together as an industry to tackle obstacles
and be prepared for the next investment cycle.

According to various market forecasts (IHS Solar, NPD Solarbuzz, Deutsche Bank)
and PV industry associations there are clear signals that global scale installations
will increase by double digits and investment in new equipment will start in
early 2015.

One key element for any stakeholder to understand the needs
of advanced manufacturing is the International Technology Roadmap for PV
(ITRPV). The fifth and latest edition will be presented and released at the
annual technology event SEMI PV Fab Managers Forum (www.semi.org/pvfmf),
organized by SEMI, and held for the first time in Shanghai, China on March
17-18.

For the first time, the ITRPV also includes contributions
from equipment and materials suppliers as well as research institutes. Dr.
Guoqiang Xing, CTO of Hareon Solar, commented, "The ITRPV needs to be a
guiding document to enrich discussions among suppliers and manufacturers.
Therefore, it is important to open the ITRPV process to include industry
suppliers so that the ITRPV results will be more precise and discussions along
the supply chain can be held concurrently with the data collection
process."

Mr. LiuYong, COO, JA Solar, stated, "JA Solar joined
the ITRPV activities as one of the first leading Chinese manufacturers. From
the beginning, it was our vision to help create an industry-wide accepted
roadmap. Now, with over 20 contributing companies, it seems we have made a big
step towards this vision. I hope that even more companies will join in the
coming years."